In Far Rockaway, N.Y., we…

In Far Rockaway, N.Y., we used to play a sadistic top game we called “crack-top”. A circle would be drawn on a smooth surface, like a shuffleboard court. Each player would place a top in the circle. The tops in the circle would have the standard ball-bearing type tip. The playing tops, however, would have a sharpened, spear-like tip. Sometimes the playing tops would be regular tops with the ball bearing removed and a nail placed point out in its place. The idea of the game was to knock tops out of the circle with the player knocking the top out, keeping the top. Of course, the real goal of the game was to split someones top wide open.